Amazon exec: Alexa and Siri should be able to communicate with each other

“Alexa and Siri, rival voice assistants on Amazon’s Echo and Apple’s iPhone, don’t directly communicate with one another. But the Amazon executive in charge of Alexa and the Amazon Echo said he’d welcome the idea,” Edward C. Baig reports for USA Today. “‘You should be able to tell ‘Alexa, ask Siri X,” said David Limp, senior vice president of devices at Amazon.”

“‘If Apple or Google want to come calling, my phone number is out there, they can call… I don’t know if I can envision it but I hope that will happen on behalf of customers,’ Limp told a group of journalists at the Wired Business Conference Wednesday in New York,” Baig reports.

“Limp has a strong interest in Apple’s entry into the voice-activated, artificially-intelligent infused speaker space,” Baig reports. “Apple’s $349 Siri-controlled HomePod speaker announced Monday is in direct competition with Amazon’s best-seller Echo… Does Limp think HomePod poses a competitive challenge to Amazon? ‘From our standpoint, it’s a little different philosophically,’ Limp says. Noting HomePod’s ‘premium’ price, Limp points out that that you can place eight of the company’s best-selling Echo Dots in a home for the same price as one new Apple speaker, at least when purchasing the Dots in a three-pack.”

My number one request for Alexa is to be able to access my iCloud information such as calendar and reminders. Being able to communicate to Siri would be good also. It would be nice if Alexa also supported the range of questions that the Google assistant can handle. Add all that and Echo becomes the perfect device.

That’s because these devices ARE glorified Furbies. 😛 I would imagine it breaks Bezos’ heart that all that data Apple doesn’t collect from its customers is going to waste and it is his civic duty to rectify such negligence. He can kiss my butt.